People typically listen to digital music by manually selecting a song or album to listen to. Users may also create a playlist of songs from a variety of albums. Both of these methods, however, require the user to have a copy of the music to play. As users typically do not have an unlimited collection of music, their selection and playback of songs is limited. Some online services exist where users can either purchase individual songs or albums, or purchase a monthly subscription to a pool of music. These services, however, still require the user to manually identify songs for playback.
As it takes time and effort to select songs and albums or to create playlists, many users still choose to listen to broadcast radio stations where someone else manually selects the programming. For example, a commercial “lite rock” FM radio station may review “lite rock” songs, which are manually selected for playback. Such broadcast radio stations, however, cater to large groups of listeners, and, as such, are not customized for individual users.
Accordingly, users typically have to choose between a more individualized listening experience that requires manually identifying and selecting music for playback, or the less individualized listening experience of radio that does not require the user to select songs for playback.